Mellon partners with nonprofit organizations whose work aligns with our current strategies.

Snapshots of a Prolific Career

The home and studio of Robert T. Coles was designed and built in 1961 to be oriented away from Humboldt Parkway—the parkway-turned-highway along which it sits. 

A front view of a yellow and gray two storied modern rectangular house 

Mid-Century Marvel

Theaster Gates, shown here, wants local Memphian hero Tom Lee to be remembered as “a human who saw other human lives as equally valuable, if not more valuable, than his own.”

A Black man identified as the artist Theaster Gates wearing a white shirt and dark pants sits on a stool covered with a tarp

An “Anti-Monument” Explores History by Asking for Dialogue

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The organization’s multi-discipline approach to civic planning merges the fields of architecture, urbanism, political theory, as well as visual arts and the humanities.

The structures featured in all four of the program’s community stations are co-designed with learning provided by the occupants and students that utilize the spaces.

Partnerships with non-profits well-invested in the stations’ unique habitats provide connections to building materials beneficial to the environment and the local economy.

The university’s proximity to challenges faced along this border allows its students to be on the forefront of climate resilience issues that increase as temperatures rise.

Each station features structures and programming specific to the community it serves; all are described as sanctuary spaces for the protection of both people and nature.

The project’s programming focuses on young people as the cross-border citizens of the future.

A low rectangular building with a window sits in front of a deep blue painted wall with a door and security camera on it

Building Borderland Resources with Each Other in Mind

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In 2025, Mellon launched a $35 million initiative aimed at supporting the cultural preservation of jazz, championing the legacies of the artists who have played a pivotal role in its formation.

Jazz Giants

The work of dancer, choreographer, and multi-disciplinary artist nora chipaumire explores gender and the Black performing body and aesthetic, while defying and deconstructing narratives born out of lived experiences of liberation wars, exiles, and racial and social differences. Photo: Erik Tanner for Mellon Foundation

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Artists as Catalysts

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Elizabeth Alexander led a discussion with guests that rejoiced in the American innovation of jazz—and the cultural creativity it has never ceased to generate throughout the world. 

American Jazz,  American Culture

“America is for Dreamers,” an exhibit featuring the work of artist Patrick Martinez on display at the Vincent Price Art Museum in Monterey Park, CA in 2018. Photo: Monica Orozco

Five colorful neon signs hang on the wall with messages that include, "Freedom cannot wait," "Brown owned," and "America is for Dreamers."

Power of the Word

If we start to learn from diverse Indigenous communities … that have deep connections to our land, there is a future for our humanity.

NATIFS is an organization that asks: What would it look like to decolonize our diets? 

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Where Is All the Native Food?

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Haymarket Books and the Mellon Foundation announced a second cohort of the ‘Writing Freedom Fellowship’ – a program created to elevate the voices of writers impacted by the carceral system.

Haymarket Books and Mellon Foundation Announce Second Cohort of ‘Writing Freedom’ Fellows 

The Institute of Black Imagination, in the Oculus at the World Trade Center PATH station, is an experiment in cultural alchemy. It turns a retail store called Space 001 into a place of transformation.

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Getting in Touch With the Black Imagination at the Oculus

The New York Landmarks Conservancy has announced the winners of the 2025 Lucy G. Moses Preservation Awards, the Conservancy’s highest honors for excellence in preservation.

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NYCHA Wins Prestigious Moses Preservation Awards

Festival highlights include solo recitals by violinist Curtis Stewart and pianist Rochelle Sennet; inspiring talks, discussions, and more.

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Gateways Festival Orchestra Returns To Carnegie Hall in April

The museum was awarded a $750,000 grant from the Mellon Foundation, bolstering its mission to serve as a leading international connector within the African American and Black Diaspora.

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International African American Museum receives $750K grant from Mellon Foundation

Mellon makes grants to support communities through the power of the arts and humanities

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A Picture of Working-Class Life, Painted with Everyday Objects

A portrait of Dr. Annie Polland, president of the Tenement Museum

Learning about the stories of ordinary people allows us... to see the ways that our communities have evolved into what they are today. 

A letter sent to the Tenement Museum more than 30 years ago implored the museum to remember the lives of Black New Yorkers. “Union of Hope: 1869,” a new exhibit with related educational programming, answers this call and introduces visitors to Joseph and Rachel Moore through a tour of their recreated dwelling. 

An ornamentally decorated wood bed holds a quilt and pillows. A lantern sits on a side table next to the bed and illuminates a wooden cross that hangs on the wall above it.. 

Meet the Moore Family: American History, Hope, and Dreams

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Beyond Incarceration

A side profile of a Black poet who is wearing glasses and a hat with a feather hat pin.

Borderlands Cultures

In portrait orientation, an aerial view of a major highway running parallel to a large border wall set on a hilly landscape

Civic Engagement

A man in a brown jacket stands in front of blue bulletin board that is covered with papers and advertisements  

Evolving Higher Education

A vertical image of an Indigenous person who is sitting on a chair in front of a backdrop.

Expanding Public Knowledge

An interior room filled with audio and video equipment 

Monuments and Memory

A multicolored painted totem pole set in front of a foggy forest landscape

Multivocality

Five people stand together in a group photo. They are laughing and smiling.

Public Places‚ Public Stories

A group of Indigenous Maskoke people stand and sit in the wooden frame of a structure in a woods

Puerto Rico and Its Diaspora

In a vertical image, a black leather vest is adorned with colorful pins across the front of it. Embroidery on the vest reads: "Felícitas "La Prieta" Méndez" 

Meet the Moore Family: American History, Hope, and Dreams

Mellon makes grants to support communities through the power of the arts and humanities

Our community in focus

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